Dorothy’s just about disappeared from view behind the towering pile of books that have been arriving at AustenBlog World Headquarters the past few weeks. Our crack staff of reviewers is sitting up nights and burning too many candles, so expect to start seeing the reviews over the next few weeks (and we’ll be giving away copies of many of the books as well, including another copy of The Jane Austen Handbook).

Laurie Viera Rigler has a new site featuring her book Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, hitting bookshelves as we write. The site is lovely and fun, with lots of Janeite links (including some cute YouTube videos), a blog, and information about upcoming appearances related to the book. We’ll have a review up soon.

Lori Smith, author of the upcoming A Walk With Jane, which will be published in October, has put together a Fact and Fiction in Becoming Jane page on her blog. She also will be offering virtual visits to book groups via telephone in November and December 2007; contact information is on the Following Austen blog.

Lost in Austen by Emma Campbell Webster (called Being Elizabeth Bennet in the UK) will be out in a few days as well. We know that many of our Gentle Readers would LOVE to be Elizabeth Bennet, so we imagine they are waiting for this one with bated breath. Emma has a new Web site as well and has relaunched her blog.

We have been accused of being a bit unfair to Shannon Hale and her book Austenland, which we really, really didn’t hate. Really. It’s a fluffy afternoon’s read and, as has been said, a good beach book. We just couldn’t identify with a heroine who is so embarrassed by her affection for Jane’s work that she would hide her P&P DVDs in the houseplants. The Editrix flies her Janeite freak flag proudly, you see. We suspect that many of our Gentle Readers (especially those who are fond of Colin Firth post-pond) will enjoy this book.

We also would like to remind our Gentle Readers of some of the Editrix’s recent favorite Austen-related books and encourage you to give them a try. Patrice Hannon’s Dear Jane Austen is a lovely and intelligent imagining of Jane Austen (in the same vein as Becoming Jane, but you won’t want to throw your popcorn at it); we loved Graphic Classics’ wonderful graphic novel anthology Gothic Classics, including adaptations of Northanger Abbey and The Mysteries of Udolpho; The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz, which we never reviewed (why didn’t we review it?), but it is a pretty good modern take on Persuasion and is out in paperback; the long-anticipated Captain Wentworth’s Diary by Amanda Grange, which we thoroughly enjoyed, so much that we wanted to roll around in it when we were done reading it; we know many of our Gentle Readers are looking forward to the U.S. publication of Mr. Knightley’s Diary in October, too. Make room on your bookshelves, Gentle Readers and Janeites, and read on!